One of my favourite yearly projects is my annual Krampus cover for Vue Weekly. In my last post I went through my history of Vue Weekly Krampus covers. So far I've visited a whiskey drinking Krampus, Hipster Krampus, and late night talk show host Krampus Letterman. How do you top that? For this years inspiration I turned to the movie that I have seen more than any other: The Big Lebowski, and while it would have been easy for me to do a great version of Dude Krampus I thought I'd leave that for another time. I went with a supporting character who shares a namesake with a savior who holds what is most likely the most famous of all birthdays. The one, the only, The Jesus.

The Jesus.

Like most things this started as a sketch, which I then inked. Scanned it and brought it into Illustrator to clean up the lines and add a few details. From there I added colour and finally dropped it into the Vue Weekly cover template. Behold Krampus Jesus!

The initial sketch / inks.

Simple line work done in Illustrator.

Basic colours done in Illustrator.

Brought in to Photoshop, and finished off.

So, there you have it. I had a great time getting this cover together. Now that you've seen the process, why not pop over to vueweekly.com to check out the paper, or you can read the whole thing online via Issuu. It's never too early to start thinking of next years Krampus. If you have any thoughts or ideas of what I should do for next years cover feel free to leave them or and other constructive feedback in the comments.

Over the last 4 years I have had the pleasure of creating an annual Krampus-themed cover for Vue Weekly. It all started in 2012 with a story on the darker side of Christmas holiday figures. Meaghan Baxter's story highlighted three of these figures with Krampus stealing the spotlight. In the years since the story came out Krampus has seen a resurgence and become more prominent in pop culture up to, and including a 2015 non-traditional holiday horror film.

2012, The dark side of the wreath.

An Anti-Santa that punishes bad kids by either hitting them with birch sticks or by trapping them in his basket and taking them with him back to hell. What's not to love about this guy? The next year Vue Weekly made Krampus our unofficial mascot for the year in review issue, so I went with a typewriter happy Hipster Krampus. (Note: He hates being called a Hipster.)

2014, Hipster Krampus inked sketch.

2014, Hipster Krampus cover.

2015 was the year David Letterman was set to retire. I'm not sure why I chose to fixate on that event, it was just a thing that was happening in pop culture and I had watched a bunch of Letterman throughout the years. He was great, so my homage to him was this Late Show themed Krampus, Krampus Letterman.

2015, Krampus Letterman sketch.

2015, Krampus Letterman cover.

That brings us to current. Tonight / tomorrow morning the new issue of Vue Weekly will hit the streets, and with it will be my next kick at the Kramp. What theme did I go with this year? Come back tomorrow to find out. But I will tell you this: Nobody f*cks with the Krampus.

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Hello to anyone who has stumbled across this page in your travels along the vast landscape of the web. What you have found is the outpost for my artwork. The safe haven for my sketchbook. The palace for my process.

Who am I?

I am the currator and creator of the content within. Chuck, Charles, or Charlie. I am a graphic designer / illustrator / musician who wants to share the fun things that I do with you. I'd also like to share the way in which I do them.